Whyte V Povetkin £19.95!

Discussion in 'British Boxing Forum' started by Glenn McKrory, Aug 8, 2020.



  1. pow

    pow Boxing Addict Full Member

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    The rematch was an even bigger con than the first fight. Haye should never have been in the ring.
     
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  2. TonyHayers

    TonyHayers Well-Known Member banned Full Member

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    Con or not, it was incredibly popular. Haye was always a good self-promoter anyway. He looked the part, was articulate, was often in exciting fights thanks to a combination of speed and power. People liked him. Him v Bellew was an easy sell - an in his prime cruiserweight and a naturally bigger man with a lot more power but on the slide and prone to injury. With the two being big characters it was always going to do well.

    I don't see how a boxing event that encouraged enough people to sell out the O2 and did absolutely massive viewing figures is bad for boxing, but I'm sure someone will be along to explain how it's killing the sport.
     
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  3. carlingeight

    carlingeight Active Member Full Member

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    Is Whyte the Ben Stokes of boxing now.. Just after he was the modern-day Henry Cooper. Looking forward to him being the Marlon Brando of cinema over the next few pages.

    'Pushed to the front', 'pushed as the face'.. what in the world are you talking about. International cricket is the highest level of cricket. England are one of the top teams. Ben Stokes is one of their best players who has perhaps contributed more to their recent success than anyone else.

    Whyte is the equivalent to an average county side. If Sky start pushing that front and centre ahead of international cricket (and charging you £20 a pop), then you have your comparison.

    Not that this addresses the point that you were moronic to say I'm pretending I'm better than people who buy PPV. Which was the only reason for the cricket analogy.

    As for Haye vs Bellew.. do you really not see that this could end badly? The pretend beef, Bellew never having fought at heavyweight, Haye so badly injured it would have been risky him playing Connect 4. What if they announce a heavyweight vs middleweight competition. What if they announce a 25 year old vs 50 year old tournament..

    I'm exaggerating to prove a point, but do you have a limit here? Is there anything Eddie Hearn could put on as boxing that would make you say, 'hang on a minute.. this isn't right?'. Or as long as he makes a good few quid then no problem.

    My main point - people who care about boxing pulling him up on this stuff is important. And it will carry on happening here and elsewhere.
     
  4. TonyHayers

    TonyHayers Well-Known Member banned Full Member

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    You keep saying things like 'Whyte is an average county side.' He's not, and the sole reason he isn't is because three men and a dog turn up to watch an average county side and hundreds of thousands buy Whyte's fights.

    You seemingly cannot get your head around the fact that quality does not equal popularity. The real-life comparison here is the fact that a couple of insanely popular YouTube characters can have a white collar fight and it'll sell a shed load but Billy Joe Saunders can only just about get on the undercard, and his fights take place off PPV and (on occasion) in a leisure centre, yet some tout him as the main threat to Canelo.

    You're not 'PPV worthy' based on ability. It's based entirely on popularity. If 20,000 people want to watch Whyte v Dubois it'll not be PPV. If 2,000,000 people want to watch Simon Cowell fight Justin Bieber it will.
     
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  5. carlingeight

    carlingeight Active Member Full Member

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    Going around in circles here. I get perfectly well that quality does not equal popularity. I'm just saying that when the quality dips too far and remains popular, it's bad for sport. And people who see this should point it out to help stop the quality dropping even further.
     
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  6. Momus

    Momus Boxing Addict Full Member

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    Boxing was always destined to be a niche sport. As the top performers shift towards a two fight a year schedule, it's inevitable becomes more and more driven by big events. As much as we'd like to return to the days of big fights live on terrestrial TV, we also can't underestimate the impact that the Watson and McClellan tragedies had on how boxing is perceived. Boxing is an awkward fit with modern day sensibilities in the mainstream media.

    I wouldn't go as far as to describe Whyte as a modern day Cooper, but what they have in common along with Woodcock, Jack Petersen and others is that fights and fighters were packaged as something more meaningful than they actually were (at least in global terms). It's been the modus operandi of British promoters for over a century to sell heavyweights as blue-collar fight anyone types; get the punters emotionally invested on the ride, and they'll keep coming back win, lose or draw. Whyte (and Chisora) are just the modern day equivalents of that trope.

    I won't be paying for Whyte-Povetkin, but the market for this exists because enough people are willing to do so. If they weren't, it wouldn't be commercially viable and would have fallen on its arse like PPV football did twenty years or so ago. Whyte does better numbers than some more accomplished fighters, ergo he is more PPV worthy than them.

    As boxing fans we lose in some ways and gain in others. There aren't many significant fights on free TV, but thousands of hours of fight footage can be found online for free in a way that was unthinkable twenty years ago.
     
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  7. Southpawology

    Southpawology Boxing Addict Full Member

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    Bahaha

    Hearn really is the enemy of British boxing

    I really don’t understand why ppl who already have a Sky Sports sub have to pay for PPVs

    Don’t we already pay to watch boxing?

    joke if you ask me
     
  8. TonyHayers

    TonyHayers Well-Known Member banned Full Member

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    In what way? It doesn't mean that quality (but broadly speaking unpopular) fights don't happen. You're holding Whyte up as an example of how far the quality has dipped - I'm sure I don't need to tell you that Billy Hardy, Dmitry Salita, Audley Harrison and Michael Jennings have all headlined PPV fights in this country from more than a decade ago.

    More people watching boxing is good for the sport surely? Popular household name fighters like Whyte draw interest in the sport, that interest puts money into the sport, that means the sport can continue to exist.
     
  9. Wizbit1013

    Wizbit1013 Drama go, and don't come back Full Member

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    So Tony, what would Whyte do if Hearn said no?

    Im just curious in your opinion
     
  10. TonyHayers

    TonyHayers Well-Known Member banned Full Member

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    Good post, but just to pick up on this, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. (I know you reference it, but I often hear people mention that if only fighters fought more often....)

    Consider this run for Chris Eubank. In September 1990 he fights twice in seventeen days; an eighth round stoppage followed by the fight against Dos Santos where he wins in a few seconds. Eight weeks later he goes nine rounds with Benn. Three month break over Christmas then another ten rounds against Dan Sherry, less than eight weeks later he fights Gary Stretch. Two months after that he goes twelve with Watson, and three months after that he fights Watson again.

    Benn ends up slurring his words and sounding punch drunk after a similarly brutal career. Watson is terribly injured. As you say, attention is drawn to these sort of schedules and the point is made that it's just not remotely healthy. Eubank has fought eight times in a year and left one opponent in a coma. Benn will himself do the same in time. Nobody wants a return to these days, because there was a very real, very loud, very consistent message that boxing should be banned, and with the best will in the world, the only thing that will unite people on here is that not happening.
     
  11. TonyHayers

    TonyHayers Well-Known Member banned Full Member

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    I'm sorry, I don't really get the question. Are you asking what Whyte would do if Hearn said 'no, you can't be on PPV?' I mean, I assume Hearn decides that after agreement with Sky Sports. Whyte presumably has absolutely nothing to do with it.
     
  12. Momus

    Momus Boxing Addict Full Member

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    I'm sure someone will point out that boxing survived on terrestrial TV long after Watson/McClellan, but I still consider them to be watershed moments that contributed towards boxing shifting from the mainstream.

    What gets lost with the passage of time is how big the fallout from these tragedies was, where serious debates on everything from mandatory headgear, shorter rounds and all the way through to an outright ban were taking place on primetime TV by various talking heads. It wasn't entirely rational, as there were ring deaths/fatalities before and after without anywhere near the media attention. However, when you get a huge live TV audience with casual fans emotionally invested in a classic fight, they tend to feel pretty uncomfortable when the guy they were cheering for or against ends up in a coma with brain damage. As boxing fans we're somewhat desensitised to it, or at least philosophical about the harsh reality of the sport.

    A similar fallout happened in the US in the 60s with the televised ring deaths of Davey Moore and Benny Paret; when you have Bob Dylan writing songs about boxing fatalities there's some obvious cut-through far beyond boxing. I don't think boxing is sustainable as a weekly mainstream sport in the way that football for example is.

    Went off on a bit of tangent there, but it provides some context for how boxing moved to a PPV model. There are a lot of factors contributing to this, and it isn't simply a case of promoter greed in general or Eddie Hearn's greed specifically (although these are of course factors).
     
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  13. Wizbit1013

    Wizbit1013 Drama go, and don't come back Full Member

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    Yes, pretty much
    What do you think Whytes options are if he were told no in order to continue earning the money he has been earning?
     
  14. TonyHayers

    TonyHayers Well-Known Member banned Full Member

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    I assume in this scenario it's Hearn saying he's no longer on PPV because he's not doing the numbers yes?

    In which case what can he do? Say he's more popular than the numbers prove? Ultimately as I've said all along PPV is a numbers game. When Frank puts on Brook v Jennings and it sells nothing, Sky say this isn't working and Frank gets booted and makes a big loss. Brook and Jennings themselves have no say in the matter.
     
  15. sjp17

    sjp17 Boxing Addict Full Member

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    Is it not a case that if they were selling an arena off tickets for Whyte vs Povetkin, then it probably would'nt be PPV ? Most boxing events without fans since Covid must be well down on income.